…and Other Unlikely Places

Revisiting “Highway 61 Revisited” (2.0)

On this repost Saturday I’m going back to a post that connects to one of the most creative and interesting parts of the country. A few days ago I did a video shoot in Athens, Alabama which is located 100 miles directly south of Nashville, Tennessee. If you look at the map—and understand just a little bit of American music history— you’ll see an area of a rich and deep tradition not only in country music, but in bluegrass, blues, gospel and rock-n-roll.

As just a sweeping overview you have Elvis from Tupelo, MS, W.C. Handy from Florence, AL, Sam Phillips’ studio in Memphis, TN, the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, and a place I’ll write about Monday with its own musical tradition—Muscle Shoals, Alabama.Here’s the post that originally ran on October 23, 2010:

And he said, “Yes, I think it can be easily doneJust take everything down to Highway 61″
Bob DylanHighway 61 Revisted

In light of Bob Dylan playing two miles from my house tomorrow night here in Cedar Falls, Iowa I thought I’d give a nod to the man from Minnesota who influenced a generation. (And, yes, I have a ticket for the concert.)

Dylan and Highway 61 both are deeper roots to what Screenwriting from Iowa is all about. (Yes, technically a stretch of Highway 61 runs though Iowa, but Dylan’s reference as well as this blog’s name is more metaphorical.)

Where does really talent come from? Everywhere. Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota which happens to be a stop on Highway 61 as it goes from New Orleans all the way north to Wyoming, Minnesota. (Contrary to the lyrics in 61 Highway Blues, Highway 61 goes nowhere near New York City.) Highway 61 has been called “The Blues Highway” because of the southern region from which blues music sprang up before it flowed into the world.

At the corner of Highway 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi is where legend has it that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange to become a master blues musician. Lots of talent has driven up and down Highway 61 including Muddy Waters, “the father of the blues,” who was born in the Mississippi Delta near Highway 61 between Clarksdale and Vicksburg.

Muddy Waters not only influenced Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Elvis, but rock n’ roll, jazz, folk, R&B, country and who knows what else. His 1950 song Rollin’ Stoneis where the Rolling Stones took their name. And of course, Waters & other bluesmen influenced Dylan. So that’s the Highway 61 connection.

Dylan spent most of his youth in the mining town of Hibbing in northern Minnesota. A group of close-knit Jewish people from Eastern Europe drawn to opportunities in the area known as the Mesabi Iron Range. (See David Mamet’s connection to storytelling and Eastern European Jews.) The ore from the area once made the small town of Hibbing very wealthy. But by the time Dylan (then known as Robert /Bobby Zimmerman) was a teenager in the 1950s the mining town’s heyday was over. But it was fertile ground to listen to blues and country on the radio and learn to play the piano and guitar. Dylan graduated from Hibbing High School in 1959.

Zimmerman became Bob Dylan while playing the folk music circuit in the Minneapolis area known as Dinkytown by the University of Minnesota. Some have said the name change was a nod to Welch poet Dylan Thomas. (“Do not go gentle into that good night.”) That was 50 years ago. Just a few years before he would record the album Highway 61 Revisited, which the magazine The Rolling Stone listed as the #4 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. And on the magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone (from the album Highway 61 Revisited) comes in at number one.

Not bad for a kid from Hibbing.

P.S. I’ve been listening to Dylan’s songs before screenwriter Diablo Cody was born. But I should point out that she was not only the inspiration behind me starting this blog in ’08 —Juno Has Another Baby (Emmy)— but she has ties to the same artistic, literary, and musical turf that Dylan tread in Minneapolis.

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100 percent of the screenwriters who now have agents at one time didn’t have an agent. 100 percent of screenwriters who are now working at one time weren’t working. 100 percent of the screenwriters who have made money at screenwriting at one time time didn’t made a dime.” Michael Hauge Writing Screenplays that Sells page […]